A sympathizer of the Cuban Communist Party located in Miami threatened the life of the head of one of the most prominent anti-communist activists in the Cuban exile community this week, referencing the bloody assassination of Russian Marxist leader Leon Trotsky.
The death threat occurred in a video that YouTube is still currently hosting at press time, identified with the tag #Biden2020. The video allows supporters to send the content creator money, meaning YouTube is allowing the individual in question to monetize death threats.
Update: As of Monday, December 14, the link to the video shows only the message: “This video has been removed for violating YouTube’s policy on harassment and bullying.”
The target of the death threat – Orlando Gutiérrez-Boronat, the co-founder of the Cuban Democratic Directorate (Directorio) and head of the umbrella Assembly of the Cuban Resistance, as well as a frequent Breitbart News contributor – told Breitbart News that law enforcement is aware of the threat and has launched an investigation. He noted that it was far from the first time that individuals and groups associated with the Castro regime have threatened and attacked Cuban exile advocates, including assassinating some members of the community, but that the threats “inspires us to struggle even harder.”
The remarks suggesting the imminent assassination of the Directorio leader follow months of increasingly violent rhetoric and behavior on the part of leftists in the United States. Riots organized by far-left groups became a staple of 2020 in major cities throughout the United States in 2020, allegedly acts in opposition to American “imperialism” and “racism.” Prominent conservatives, or simply bystanders wearing clothing or gear identifying their ideology, were routinely victims of mob attacks throughout the year. Individuals with no identifiable political beliefs also fell victim to mob violence in some areas of the country for patronizing restaurants and not stopping their meals to apologize for their alleged racism.
In Miami, the heart of the Cuban exile community and where Directorio and the Assembly are headquartered, leftists adopted symbols of Latin American communism, including the flag of the Nicaraguan Sandinista tyranny and the image of Argentine mass murderer Ernesto “Che” Guevara, during riots allegedly calling for racial justice.
Edmundo García, a self-proclaimed “journalist” with a record of attempting to cause conflict at Cuban exile community events, warned Gutiérrez-Boronat that he may soon meet the same fate as Leon Trotsky – hacked to death with a pickaxe – less than a week after Cuban state television attacked Gutiérrez-Boronat for, among other infractions, playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at a Cuban exile event. Gutiérrez-Boronat had also published an English-language article in Breitbart News explaining the Cuban exile community’s rejection of the Democrat Party last week.
García made the graphic remarks during a live YouTube broadcast, from a room decorated with photos of Fidel Castro, that remains accessible at press time despite its overt incitement to violence, a violation of YouTube usage policies.
The video, whose title refers to Gutiérrez-Boronat as a “fascist,” is tagged #Biden2020.
“Orlandito … your Mercader could be on the way … you could have a Mercader in your path,” García said, referring to Trotsky’s assassin, Spanish communist Ramón Mercader. “For those who did not understand this advice, this warning … just Google the name ‘Ramón Mercader’ then you’ll know what I mean.”
“You will never have peace in Cuba, neither you nor anyone demanding what you demand,” he concluded.
Following local Miami reports highlighting the violent rhetoric against a longstanding community leader, García uploaded another video in which he claimed law enforcement would be unable to stop him from threatening the lives of those he disagreed with because he had worded his threat too intelligently. García then employed profanity and homophobic rhetoric to continue attacking anti-communist leaders.
“In my opinion, these individuals are part of the dark web of influence, intimidation, and espionage that a despotic foreign tyranny has set up on U.S. soil to spy upon and coerce U.S. citizens. It should be absolutely inadmissible,” Gutiérrez-Boronat told Breitbart News. He noted that Cuban exile activists have faced violence from communist sympathizers for decades.
“Other members of the exile community have received threats and have even been assassinated in years past for their activism on behalf of democracy for Cuba. There is a history of this in the exile community,” Gutiérrez-Boronat noted. “This will not change our advocacy of democracy in Cuba, it inspires us to struggle even harder. We are ready to take upon ourselves all the risks and sacrifices entailed in this struggle. Certainly, our brothers and sisters in the Resistance on the island have given us the example.”
“Cuba is ready for change and these actions by the Communist Regime indicate how desperate they are about the growing possibility of losing power,” he added.
The most recent high-profile assassination of American citizens by the Castro regime and its supporters occurred in 1996. Cuban-Americans Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre, Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales were members of a group known as Brothers to the Rescue, which specialized in flying planes over the Caribbean Sea to find stranded Cuban refugees attempting to flee the communist regime on rafts and other makeshift vessels. Fidel Castro had allowed the departure of Cubans from the island at the time, but nearly exclusively through this often-deadly means.
The Cuban military shot the four men out of the sky, killing them, illegally over international waters on February 24, 1996. President Bill Clinton did nothing in response; President Barack Obama freed the five spies responsible for the surveillance that allowed for their murder, allowing them a heroes’ welcome in Havana.
The “Cuban Five,” as the spies came to be known, actively engaged in infiltrating groups like Directorio as part of a larger program known as the “wasp network.”
“In 1999, we were advised by authorities, and it later appeared in the Court transcripts, that we were being followed and surveilled by the Castro Wasp Network in Miami. Our names appeared on a list that the FBI intercepted and was presented in federal court,” Gutiérrez-Boronat told Breitbart News.
More recently, the members of the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance were subject to a violent, public assault in Panama when attempting to visit a bust of José Martí, a highly venerated Cuban historical figure. A mob of Castro sympathizers ambushed the group, in Panama in 2015 for the Summit of the Americas, in an attack caught on video.
The Organization of American States (OAS) invited Cuba to the 2015 Summit of the Americas despite Cuba overtly violating the summit’s requirement that participants be democratic states.
Gutiérrez-Boronat has been heavily involved in efforts to bring awareness to the human rights abuses endured by Cubans on the island under the Castro regime. His organizations have recently expanded their efforts to educational initiatives on the violent history of socialism in response to the ideology’s growing popularity in the United States. In October, the Cuban Democratic Directorate organized a caravan and corresponding “drive-in” seminar in Miami in opposition to communism and socialism that attracted an estimated tens of thousands of cars.
The advocacy organizations have also expanded to international concerns, issuing statements in support of the government of Taiwan against attempts by the Chinese Communist Party to usurp its sovereignty. The Assembly of the Cuban Resistance is one of the few Latin American members of the Coalition to End Forced Labour in the Uyghur Region, which demands an end to the Communist Party of China’s practice of imprisoning and enslaving members of China’s ethnic Uyghur minority in concentration camps.